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Key Details
Type
MountainMythology
Chinese Pantheon
Realm
Mythological / Non-physical
About This Location
Buddha's mountain-seal
After the havoc in heaven, the Buddha traps Sun Wukong under a mountain of five elements (or Five-Phases Mountain) with a talisman on the summit. Five hundred years later Xuanzang lifts the seal. Journey to the West is the source. There is no earlier Buddhist sutra of this prison. The mountain is a doctrinal joke: the monkey of mind pinned by emptiness and form until a monk needs a disciple.
Primary Sources
“The Tathagata pushed his hand down and the Monkey King was under the Mountain of Five Elements.”
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